Canada to start airdropping aid into Gaza within days: source
The Canadian government will begin airdropping aid into Gaza within the next week, a government source tells CBC News.
Months of violence have followed the events of Oct. 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killed approximately 1,200 people and took roughly 250 others hostage, according to Israeli accounts. Since then, Israeli strikes have killed approximately 29,000 people, according to Gaza’s Hamas-led health authority.
Humanitarian groups are calling for more aid to be allowed into Gaza to help with an intense and worsening crisis there. The World Food Programme recently suspended aid shipments into northern Gaza, citing “complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order” and warning again about the risk of starvation in the region.
Some of Canada’s allies have already started such airdrop operations.
Aid funded by the United Kingdom was recently dropped to a hospital in northern Gaza. The Netherlands and France also have been involved in airdrop operations.
Jordan has dropped aid to a field hospital it runs in Gaza several times since the beginning of the conflict. Israel approved and co-ordinated with a Jordanian drop in November, according to Reuters.
While many of the previous airdrops have been carried out by the Jordanian air force, Canada is considering using its own aircraft, which are larger and have more carrying capacity, the source said.
